Raffaele Fitto, new EU executive vice-president: a political journey from the DC to the Brussels control room

Since day one of the Meloni government it has been the most crucial outpost in relations with Brussels. And now, after his appointment as executive vice-president in charge of Cohesion and Reforms, Raffaele Fitto is now implicitly entrusted with the job of mending fences with Ursula von der Leyen's Commission after the rifts linked to the new post-vote balances. Minister for European Affairs, Cohesion Policies and the Pnrr in the centre-right executive, the former enfant prodige of Fratelli d'Italia has a 30-year-long history starting from the DC and as an axis the South (her Apulia in particular) and the EU. With an aptitude for mediation, for unshouted tones, for a concrete sense of things that is a personal trait even before being political.

Born in Maglie, on 28 August 1969, Raffaele is the son of Christian Democrat politician Salvatore Fitto, president of Puglia from 1985 until his death in 1988. This was the year when the young Fitto began his militancy in the Christian Democratic Party, with which he was elected to the regional council in 1990. In 1994 came his law degree and, with the dissolution of the DC, his membership of Rocco Buttiglione's Italian Popular Party, which he would follow in the alliance with the newly formed Forza Italia. In 1995, he was reconfirmed in the Region, where he became councillor and vice-president.

Elected as an MEP with Forza Italia (1999), he remained in office for only one year because in 2000 he ran for the leadership of Puglia, becoming the youngest regional president in the history of the Republic. Re-elected as a candidate in the 2005 regional elections, he was narrowly defeated by Nichi Vendola. The following year, Fitto landed in Parliament as a Fi MP, and in 2008 he was appointed Minister for Regional Affairs in the Berlusconi IV government. In 2014, he returned to Strasbourg with a victory in the European elections, but that same year saw the break with Forza Italia following the Nazareno pact. The final divorce came in 2015. Two years later, the Direzione Italia experience was born, but after failing in the 2018 elections, the party federated with Fratelli d'Italia for the 2019 European elections, in which Fitto was re-elected. In 2020, Fitto ran again for governor of Puglia, but was beaten by outgoing president Michele Emiliano. In the 25 September 2023 political elections, he became an MP with Fratelli d'Italia.

Ue: Fitto, 'ready to make my contribution, thank Meloni'

And who knows whether Fitto's arrival in Europe might be a good pro for a revision of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which, at the moment, does not ensure the spending in the Mezzogiorno of 40% of the resources. It was the former minister himself who evoked the possibility in a recent hearing before the joint committees of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies ('It's not like I'm revealing a mystery here, either. Will there be a need to evaluate some further revision? Perhaps yes'). According to the numbers reported by the minister, the Plan is advancing. Expenditure has risen to EUR 52.2 billion from the EUR 51.3 billion recorded on 17 July and the measures activated have reached EUR 165 billion out of a total of EUR 194 billion, i.e. 85%. Excluding delays once again, Fitto said that an extension of the June 2026 deadline is not 'on the agenda' for him (despite the hopes in this sense of the Minister of the Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti) but 'legitimate and correct' is to debate the point.